Will Sheff - Nothing Special (LP) - Cloudy Skies Vinyl

Will Sheff has spent two decades turning messy human feelings into stories you can live inside, mostly under the Okkervil River banner. Nothing Special, released in 2022 on ATO Records, is his first solo album, and it lands like a quiet conversation after the party ends. The title is wry, because plenty here feels rare. He pares the arrangements back and lets the songs carry the weight, the way a good short story does. It is music that leans in rather than elbows for attention, and that restraint suits him.

The opener draws you into a world where tiny details matter. He still writes with a novelist’s eye, but the tone has softened, less showy, more sure of itself. You hear it straight away in Estrangement Zone, a standout that taps into that uneasy middle space between closeness and distance. The melody feels easy but the lyric keeps twisting the knife, the way his best work always has. When the rhythm section settles under his voice, there is a sense of resolve. He sounds like someone who has made peace with a few old ghosts and decided to sing anyway.

The title track is a beauty. Nothing Special turns the phrase over and finds something tender inside it. He has always been good at refrains that sound like everyday speech but carry a secret payload. Here the chorus works as a shrug and a benediction at once. The arrangement is spare, with acoustic guitar at the centre, a few glints of keys, harmonies that come in like a friend putting a hand on your shoulder. It is the kind of track that rewards a late night play, lights down, record spinning.

What marks this album out from the Okkervil River catalogue is not a rupture but a shift of angle. He has used widescreen palettes before. Here the colours are gentler, the edges less jagged. You still get the literary bite, the sideways humour, the way he sketches a character in a couple of lines. But he gives the songs more air. Small production choices add colour without pulling focus. A brushed snare that sounds like it is right in the room. A piano figure that rings and fades. Nothing feels fussed over. It feels lived in.

As a whole, the record reads like a reckoning with scale. How big a life needs to be. How much noise you need to make to be heard by the people who matter. There is no grand thesis spelled out, just a series of rooms to walk through, each one catching a different angle of light. That sense of quiet clarity is why it clicks on vinyl. The Nothing Special vinyl pressing lets the low end breathe, and the acoustic textures sit warm and natural. If you collect Will Sheff albums on vinyl, this one belongs on the shelf next to your Okkervil River favourites, because you can hear the grain of his voice and the space around it.

It is easy to imagine long time fans hearing echoes of earlier arcs, the romance gone crooked of The Stage Names or the autumnal glow of later Okkervil River sets, but the songwriting here trusts simplicity. That is the risk and the reward. A song rises or falls on a single line, a single chord change, a pause that lands just right. He sticks those landings. The record is not trying to bowl you over. It sticks with you because it feels honest and unhurried.

If you are hunting for Will Sheff vinyl, this is the one that turns heads in the shop when side A starts. If you want to buy Will Sheff records online, keep an eye out for the ATO pressing, which has been easy to recommend to customers who want clean, dynamic cuts. Folks browsing Nothing Special vinyl often end up taking it home after a needle drop, because two minutes in you know what kind of night it is going to be. And if you are in a Melbourne record store or trawling a site that ships vinyl records Australia wide, file this under modern singer songwriter with a literary streak and a soft heart.

Nothing Special is not a victory lap. It is a fresh start that doesn’t need fireworks to feel important. The songs are lean, empathetic, and built to last. It sounds like a writer who trusts his instincts and a singer who knows when to step back and let the words do the work. Quietly triumphant, if that is not a contradiction.